[AgentR11]

Graeme, read more carefully. Low income is not the problem.

MIDDLE INCOME WITH COMMUTE is the deal breaker.

Low income vote D now.
And will vote D regardless of what the tax does.

What you have to look for are situations where people will be hurt enough to change their votes. Low incomes make money off Hansen. Middle and some High income with no commute make money off Hansen. Middle with substantial commutes get annihilated. Whats worse is that they will see their hard earned, meager paychecks being docked to write checks to other people for doing nothing.

And its just really unfortunate that those very same "middle with commute" also happen to reside in a lot of competitive districts. It amplifies the political impact many fold.

[Graeme]

If you are really interested in this topic, I would suggest you talk to your local tax lawyer, IRS representative or congressman. I am not an expert.

All I can suggest at this point is a carbon tax and dividend scheme.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')his scheme gives each citizen some skin in the game. Each of us are provided with an incentive to reduce our footprints. The smaller your footprint, the more money you make. New business opportunities will arise to create products and services with smaller eco-footprints. Most importantly, the market will begin to reflect the true cost of using fossil fuels, propelling a shift to renewable forms of energy.

[Graeme]

"Addressing climate change must take top priority in the next four years"

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he clever bunch at MIT usually know what they're talking about when it comes to science and technology. So when they write an open letter urging you to do something in one of their fields of expertise, it's usually best to read very carefully and take the recommendations into account. I'm hoping that this is what president Obama will do with the open letter that MIT's Technology Review has sent him urging action on climate change during his second term.

Here are some choice excerpts:

Amid the crises and battles, both predictable and unforeseeable, that you will face over the next four years, one problem will stand out both for the economic and social dangers it poses and for the difficulty and cost of solving it. Whether you can develop a practical and sustainable strategy to address climate change—specifically, to begin lowering carbon dioxide emissions—will define the success of your new term as president. We do not make such a declaration lightly; we are keenly aware of the many other challenges you face. But the potential for global warming over the next decades threatens consequences so dire that they could overwhelm any progress you make toward other long-term economic, social, and political goals. [...]

Slowing down global warming won’t be cheap. You have often stressed the economic benefits of choosing new energy technologies. You make a valid argument that moving away from fossil fuels will have positive implications for many businesses. And certainly new technologies will provide jobs and other economic opportunities. But we can no longer pretend that addressing climate change will be without real costs. Economic studies show that it is likely to cost trillions of dollars worldwide, though those analyses also present evidence that the price will grow higher the longer we wait. [...]

The International Energy Agency reports that global emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil-fuel combustion reached a record 31.6 metric gigatons in 2011. To have a decent chance of limiting the average global temperature increase to 2 °C and avoiding the most devastating effects of climate change, we will need carbon emissions to peak at no more than 32.6 metric gigatons, and to start falling no later than 2017. The president who takes office that year will thus be facing a far more urgent problem—probably, like you, with no political consensus on how to solve it. But as a president in his final term, you have a chance to take risks. You have the power and the opportunity to lay the groundwork for a new clean-energy policy that will help us avoid the worst consequences of climate change. It is quite possible that if this is not done over the next four years, it will be too late.

[Graeme]

Obama Might Actually Host A Climate Summit In His Second Term

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'B')arack Obama may intervene directly on climate change by hosting a summit at the White House early in his second term, environmental groups say.
They say the White House has given encouraging signals to a proposal for Obama to use the broad-based and bipartisan summit to launch a national climate action strategy.
"What we talked about with the White House is using it as catalyst not just for the development of a national strategy but for mobilising people all over the country at every level," said Bob Doppelt, executive director of the Resource Innovation Group, the Oregon-based thinktank that has been pushing for the high-level meeting. He said it would not be a one-off event.
"What I think has excited the White House is that it does put the president in a leadership role, but it is not aimed at what Congress can do, or what he can do per se, so much as it is aimed at apprising the American public about how they can act."

[Graeme]

Climate Protests Erupt Across the Nation -- Expect More

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'M')onday, from Texas to Maine, Americans converged on the offices of TransCanada and its affiliates in protest of the company's proposed Keystone XL pipeline. The protests were coordinated by members of the Texas-based Tar Sands Blockade and other groups.

The centerpiece of this week's actions was a sit-in at TransCanada's office in Houston, Texas, where protesters took over the lobby of the Keystone XL headquarters and staged a die-in. More than 100 demonstrators were present.

In Detroit and Portland, Maine, protesters rallied outside TD and Chase banks, both of which are investors in the pipeline.

In Massachusetts, eight youth activists locked and glued themselves into TransCanada's Westborough office as part of a sit-in. The participants in the action were students and recent graduates from Brandeis, Boston University, Harvard, Tufts, and the University of New Hampshire.

"The activities of corporations like TransCanada threaten the future of my entire generation," Benjamin Trolio, a senior at the University of New Hampshire, explained before the action. "We need our political leaders to do their job by standing up for us and taking action to solve the climate crisis. They can start by drawing a clear line in the sand and stopping the Keystone XL pipeline."

The Keystone XL is the export pipeline proposed by TransCanada to carry tar sands oil from Northern Alberta to the Gulf of Mexico. The proposal has drawn intense criticism for its risk to waterways and local environments, its displacement of homeowners, and its staggering implications for global climate change.

These risks, combined with evidence that the pipeline would kill more jobs than it creates, have united opposition from across the political spectrum -- from leftist Occupiers to Texas Tea Partiers and everything in between. Students, landowners, environmentalists, indigenous peoples, and scientists in particular have made their objections heard loud and clear.

[AgentR11]

Just to interject, once again, into the press release stream, all these lofty goals of lefties, can't happen. The left can not pass legislation in the US. Period. The left is also risking something rather large in the process of its unwillingness to seek compromise solutions; and that is, 2014 is unlikely to change the composition of the House much; and 2016 puts the presidency in play in a big way. Biden is weaker than Gore ever was, and Gore got beat by an idgit. The right would have to nominate someone as politically disfavored as Palin, and uncharismatic as a Russian oil tycoon to lose. Which should mean, all things being equal, 2016 will be an even-money race between two newcomers to Presidential politics.

Do you really want to bet the future of the world on an even money toss of the dice? If an R wins in 2016, with the current dialog with regard to climate change remediation measures, there will be nothing even remotely resembling a carbon tax until at the earliest 2022. Think China will enact a carbon tax if the US does not? Think we can wait till 2022?

No?

Time to think differently. Hang up the lefty cloak, and get serious.

[ennui2]

I think the main reason people protest is to assuage their personal guilt over being a cog in the wheel. When you step back and evaluate how much actual positive change can come from it, it's hard to make a case that it would do more than rearrange the deck-chairs, even the 350.org stuff, and for the record, I have met Bill McKibben in person, but this was in Lexingon, MA, a lefty town to be sure, but one with a population of immense per-capita energy use that nobody who saw him would voluntarily curtail. The Al Gore cognitive dissonance of doing as I say and not as I do, or expecting some sort of technofix solution that allows us to have our cake and eat it too, well, that ship has sailed, in my opinion. I know perfect is the enemy of good, and if these things can help, maybe in the short to medium-term, I welcome it, but my assessment of the scale of the problem and the environmental feedbacks and inertia ultimately makes me think of endgames as Lovelock does.

It doesn't mean I can resist oohing and aahing over the Tesla dealership in my mall, but I no longer believe that there is a technotopia solution to this problem, and that's really the only one that sells to the majority of environmentalists. That's why the republicans seized on Solyndria, because it attacks the narrative of a green economy. The republicans want to make sure the public feels that the back-bone of the economy is fossil fuels and therefore frame environmentalism as an attack on prosperity. And they are probably right. You won't take this train off the tracks and put it onto renewables and not have to make sacrifices. And so there's denial on both sides.

Powerdown doesn't sell, and certainly not during a perma-recession.

So you can remove all of the forces that spin denialism all you want, and get everyone on board with believing we're in trouble, and you're still left with that "tragedy of the commons" resistance to limit consumption. But since where we are now is that roughly half or more of the American public in some way deny that climate change even exists, and we are so far away from even worrying about whether we might actually do anything constructive that it's hard to see any sort of light at the end of the tunnel.

I support activism as a matter of principle, but I have little hope it's going to change any measurable outcomes.

[Graeme]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AgentR11', 'J')ust to interject, once again, into the press release stream, all these lofty goals of lefties, can't happen. The left can not pass legislation in the US. Period. The left is also risking something rather large in the process of its unwillingness to seek compromise solutions; and that is, 2014 is unlikely to change the composition of the House much; and 2016 puts the presidency in play in a big way. Biden is weaker than Gore ever was, and Gore got beat by an idgit. The right would have to nominate someone as politically disfavored as Palin, and uncharismatic as a Russian oil tycoon to lose. Which should mean, all things being equal, 2016 will be an even-money race between two newcomers to Presidential politics.

Do you really want to bet the future of the world on an even money toss of the dice? If an R wins in 2016, with the current dialog with regard to climate change remediation measures, there will be nothing even remotely resembling a carbon tax until at the earliest 2022. Think China will enact a carbon tax if the US does not? Think we can wait till 2022?

No?

Time to think differently. Hang up the lefty cloak, and get serious.

[AgentR11]

I'll believe it when I see it, but I can't see the electoral math working to permit Republicans to vote for any carbon tax that any D president could sign.

I don't mind being hopeful, but I sure wouldn't bet anything significant on it.

[Loki]

I'm afraid Obama et al. just burned through a good chunk of their political capital pushing this ridiculous gun control plan, symbolic measures that even they admit will achieve nothing. Fiddling while Rome burns.

The House Pubs are the least of the problem when you can barely get a Democratic president to even mention the words "climate change." The only way this is going to change is if people make it clear to Dems that ignoring the subject is unacceptable. I don't have high hopes that grassroots activism will be effective given the political and economic context, but I sure am glad there are still some folks with balls in this country.

In the mean time, expect the Dems to focus on important issues like which pair of gonads can get married, or how many rounds a Glock magazine should hold.

[Graeme]

Sierra Club Pens Climate Change Letter To President Obama Days Before State Of The Union

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')n anticipation of Tuesday night’s State of the Union address, the Sierra Club penned the following letter to President Obama, signed by 30 celebrity activists and environmental leaders:

Dear President Barack Obama,
Your legacy as 44th president of the United States rests firmly on your leadership on climate disruption. Only the president has the power to lead an effort on the scale and with the urgency we need to phase out fossil fuels and lead America, and the world, in a clean energy revolution.

WE SUPPORT YOUR DEMONSTRATING THE STRONGEST RESOLVE IN FIGHTING THE CLIMATE CRISIS ON EVERY FRONT.

The letter, signed by Edward Norton, Morgan Freeman, Yoko Ono and others, is one of many efforts to draw attention to climate change in the days leading up to the February 17 Forward on Climate Rally. The rally, which will take place in Washington, D.C. just days after Obama's speech, is "expected to be the largest climate rally in U.S. history," says Robert Redford.

According to Sierra Club Executive Director and HuffPost Blogger Michael Brune, the timing is not coincidental. “We're also on the cusp of a clean energy revolution that will transform our nation, slash carbon pollution, and turn this climate disaster around,” Brune wrote. “We need President Obama to commit to that fight with all the ambition and determination he can bring.”

[Graeme]

Tons of Californians arrested at White House climate change protest

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'S')hortly before 1 p.m. West Coast time Wednesday, 48 environmental activists — including a ton of Bay Area residents including San Franciscans like Sierra Club executive director Michael Brune and Adam Werbach, St. Mary’s College professor Brenda Hillman and her husband UC-Berkeley professor and former poet laureate Bob Haas — were arrested after chaining themselves to a fence outside the White House to protest the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline.

We told you this invite-only civil disobedience demonstration was coming a couple of weeks ago. It’s news in that Obama’s liberal base is increasingly ticked off at him about his inaction on climate change. (And it was the first time in its history that the Sierra Club OK’d nonviolent civil disobedience as an organization.)

And yes, while Obama launched more climate change promises in Tuesday’s State of the Union speech, a lot of enviros want to see Obama’s actions back up his words. And they’re taking a stand on the pipeline.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Graeme', ' ')Obama’s liberal base is increasingly ticked off at him about his inaction on climate change.....And yes, while Obama launched more climate change promises in Tuesday’s State of the Union speech, a lot of enviros want to see Obama’s actions back up his words.

[Graeme]

Hi Plant, I have often wondered that myself, and so have a lot of others in USA (including the Sierra Club President). But let's see how the new climate legislation progresses in congress. Fingers crossed.

More here.

[Graeme]

More on the White House protests:

Daryl Hannah leads celebrity Keystone XL protest at White House gates

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A') celebrity roster of protesters, including climate scientist James Hansen, actor Daryl Hannah, civil rights leader Julian Bond and environmental advocate Robert Kennedy Jr, were arrested on Wednesday after handcuffing themselves to the gates of the White House to demand that Barack Obama shut down the Keystone XL pipeline project.

In all, about 50 people were detained. The protests, while entirely orderly and co-ordinated in advance with local police, delivered a sharp reminder to Obama the morning after his state of the union address of the enormous political challenges ahead as he tries to make good on his promise to act on climate change.

[dohboi]

Since it was a quote by the fund manager Jeremy Grantham that kicked off this thread, and since he has been broadly panned by many (including me) for encouraging others to stick their necks out without showing willingness to do so himself...

it should be pointed out that he too is joining the pipeline protest and may well get arrested in the process.

http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2013/02/ ... Stories%29

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'F')or Grantham, this will be his first protest of any kind ever. "I have told scientists to be persuasive, be brave and be arrested, if necessary, so it only seems proper to do this," he says. Grantham traveled to Washington by train Tuesday night to march alongside roughly 50 climate-change activists and environmental advocates, in addition to civil-rights leader Julian Bond, environmentalist Bill McKibben, and Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune.

[Graeme]

D, Thanks. Here's some more info about the pipeline:

KEYSTONE XL: Here's Everything You Need To Know About The Ambitious Oil Pipeline That Has America Divided

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he U.S. and Canada are still awaiting a decision on the construction of Transcanada's Keystone XL pipeline, which would deliver cheap Canadian crude oil to the midwest and the Gulf Of Mexico ports.

The latest word from Sec. of State John Kerry is that a decision will come the "near term."

The pipeline comes with the promise of more jobs and higher tax revenues.
However, it's unclear if it'll bring oil prices down and increase American energy independence.

However, it also comes with serious environmental risks that have high powered financiers like GMO's Jeremy Grantham worried.
This pipeline has the country divided.

We want to bring you up to speed on the state of the debate.

[Graeme]

Keystone XL protesters pressure Obama on climate change promise

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')housands of protesters descended on Washington DC on Sunday demanding Barack Obama shut down the Keystone XL pipeline project to show he is serious about taking action on climate change.

Organisers said a crowd of 35,000, carrying placards in the shape of bright red stop signs, gathered at the Washington monument on a bright but bitterly cold day for the march on the White House.

The event, billed as the largest climate protest in history, was intended as a show of force before Obama renders his decision on the pipeline project in the next few months.

Protesters were bussed in from 30 states and Canadian provinces. Marchers held aloft banners proclaiming "Don't be fossil fools" and "It's time to cut carbon" during the rally.

They said Obama's entire presidential legacy rests on the Keystone XL, which they framed as a critical test of Obama's environmental credentials and his sweeping promises to use the next four years to protect future generations from climate change.

"Obama holds in his hand a pen and the power to deliver on his promise of hope for our children," said Michael Brune, the director of the Sierra Club. "Today we are asking him to use that pen to reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, and ensure that this dirty, dangerous, export pipeline will never be built."

Others said Obama owed it to his supporters to reject a project, which would open up a vast store of carbon. "I think it's really important for Obama to realise that his base, the people who supported him, do not want this," said Judy Dufficy, a former teacher from Chicago. She said she had volunteered for Obama in Iowa, where he started his run for the White House in 2008.

[Graeme]

Wow. Emotions are really running high with politicians in Canada and US on the issues of climate change and the Keystone pipeline. Is that how the fate of the pipeline will be decided?

Canada's Coal Cutbacks Best U.S., Baird Argues

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'C')anada can teach the United States some lessons on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said Sunday in a blunt rejoinder to recent chiding by the Obama administration on climate change.

Baird told The Canadian Press that the U.S. should actually be following Canada's lead on working to cut back on the use of coal-fired electricity generation.

Baird was responding to U.S. Ambassador David Jacobson who told The Canadian Press separately last week that President Barack Obama's State of the Union address calling for swift action on climate change should also be interpreted as a challenge to Ottawa.

"We adopted the same goals and objectives in terms of climate change … We worked with the Obama administration and harmonized vehicle emission standards, light truck standards," Baird said Sunday in a telephone interview from Lima, Peru.

"We're also taking concrete direct action with respect to dirty, coal fired electricity generation.

"Maybe the United States could join Canada on that file."

Baird was mindful that environmentalists were descending Sunday on Washington for a major protest of Canada's proposed Keystone XL pipeline that would carry Alberta oilsands bitumen to the U.S. Gulf coast.

[Graeme]

Is the Keystone XL Pipeline Worth Getting Arrested For?

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'L')ast week, four dozen opponents of the Keystone XL pipeline, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and environmental activist Bill McKibben, were arrested after they engaged in civil disobedience near the gates of the White House. Some of the activists attached themselves to the fence around the White House and others refused to move after being ordered to do so by U.S. Park Police. On Sunday, tens of thousands of people marched in Washington, D.C., to protest the pipeline project.

The demonstrators are hoping to convince President Obama to reject federal approval for the line, which aims to carry crude oil from Canada and North Dakota’s Bakken Shale to the U.S. Gulf Coast. But if opponents of the Keystone pipeline are going to stop the flow of crude, they are going to have to do more than just get arrested or hold a rally—they are going to have block nearly every north-south rail line in North America.

When it comes to the flow of northern crude to U.S. refineries, here’s the reality: No Keystone XL? No problem.

While opponents of the pipeline have been rallying their supporters, U.S. and Canadian railroads have been hauling record amounts of oil. Last year, the volume of oil delivered by rail in the United States jumped by about 46 percent compared with 2011. According to the Association of American Railroads, oil-related rail traffic increased in Canada by 30 percent. In December, U.S. and Canadian railroads were hauling about 1.9 million barrels of oil and refined products per day, double the volume moved in 2009. Of that total, about 1 million barrels per day is being railed in the United States.